Marblehead minister 'called to a higher law,' arrested in D.C.

Friday

Aug 8, 2014 at 2:54 PMAug 10, 2014 at 5:05 PM

On Thursday, July 31, over 100 faith leaders and human-rights activists, including Rev. Wendy von Zirpolo, parish minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead, gathered in front of the White House knowing they would be arrested. The interfaith group called upon President Obama to use his power to stop unfair deportations, help the child refugees and move ahead on comprehensive and compassionate immigration reform.“I feel called to a higher law, one that recognizes all human beings as worthy of respect, compassion and love,” von Zirpolo said. “History will write about this time and how we behaved. Today, we look back in horror at how we turned away the St. Louis in 1939, and as a result hundreds of Jewish men, women and children died in Nazi concentration camps.”The St. Louis was carrying 937 refugees fleeing from the Nazis, and the U.S., along with Cuba and Canada, refused it entry. The ship was forced to return to Europe, and it is estimated that at least one-quarter of the passengers died in concentration camps.The pastor of the UU church is no stranger to civil disobedience arrests or immigration issues. This arrest was her third and marked the end of four months of weekly 48-hour fasts during which she focused her efforts on raising awareness about the issue and writing to President Obama and other representatives.“It’s the thing I can do,” she said. “We all choose how we will live our values, which issues have captured our hearts and souls, and how we are called in the world. I was brought up to care about all people, and once I learned what was happening along the border, and importantly, in our own communities because of our failed immigration system, I could do no other. I’m clear that this is THE human-rights issue of my generation. I pray it will not be for future generations.”The interfaith and human-rights leaders were joined by hundreds of supporters who chanted while the protesters made three lines on the sidewalk in front of the White House, holding signs reading, “Don’t Deport the Kids,” “Pray for Relief,” “Stop the Deportations” and “Stop Breaking Up Families,” and bearing pictures of people who were in detention or who had been deported."We have come to Washington, D.C., to tell to President Obama and Congress that kicking out suffering immigrant families and unaccompanied children is not the answer," said Bishop Minerva Carcaño, the United Methodist Bishop in Los Angeles. “Immediately stopping the deportations and extending due process to children escaping the violence of drug cartels, gangs and poverty is the just way to respond.”Carcaño, a longtime activist with connections to Boston University, called upon those gathered to offer the “moral voice” to an issue currently controlled by politics.As her arrests mount up, von Zirpolo offered that, although she has great love for her country and president, she is compelled to the acts of civil disobedience and suspects this will not be her last.“I wish I didn’t need to do this,” she said. “Truly, being handcuffed isn’t fun. In Arizona, the process was particularly hideous. But what Latino/a and other people of color are facing every day in this country is far more heinous, and we have to make it stop.”She continued, “It’s not just on the border; it happens here. People with whom we share the air we breathe are living in fear and in pain. As long as I’m alive, I will be working to make that different. If we listen to the inner voice that knows we are all equal, the voice some call ‘God,’ we know what we have to do.”Von Zirpolo protested closer to home on Thursday, Aug. 7, in the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Coalition’s “March and Rally to Stand Up for All Children” in Boston’s Copley Square."Regardless of individual positions on immigration reform, because it is complex, I hope everyone can get behind supporting these children,” von Zirpolo said. “Imagine a child arriving at your door, crying and bleeding, fleeing from their abuser. Wouldn't you let them in? Our current laws support just that, and yet politics are getting in the way. It's sinful. They're children. And they are ours."